Little of any value to anyone other than Floyd. Not much to show for a life, but right now it amounted to a sight more than I had.

There had to be a reason for his disappearance. I checked the bathroom cabinet in case Floyd had been taking some sort of prescribed medication, but all I found were Aspirin and a packet of prophylactics.

On the kitchen wall was a calendar from a Chinese restaurant. That day's date had been ringed in red ballpoint and 'Steve − Lake Butler' scrawled across it. Sunning itself on the fire escape outside the kitchen door was an one-eyed cat. It hissed angrily and scratched me on the back of my hand when I reached down to read the collar tag.

The phone ringing caused me to start. I walked back into the sitting room and picked it up.

"Floyd?" a woman asked.

I didn't recognize the voice.

"I need to speak to Floyd Benedict. Is he there?" the voice snapped when I didn't answer.

"Not at the moment. Who wants him?"

The line went dead and I cradled the receiver.

The first sign that there might be something sinister behind Floyd's disappearance was the contents of the refrigerator. The carton of orange juice was two weeks old and a tray of ground beef had spoiled. It had been a while since anyone had used this apartment. That would explain the cat's testiness.

There were enough cans and dried food in the cupboards to assemble a meal from and I busied myself at the stove, relishing cooking for one for a change. The cat slipped through its flap and eyed me suspiciously. I tossed it a piece of pasta, which it sniffed but didn't touch. The engraving on its collar read, 'Jasper'.

For the rest of the evening I sat in front of the television, channel-hopping, expecting Floyd to ring at any moment demanding that I come pick him up. No one called, so a little after midnight I turned off the lights and went to bed.

CHAPTER THREE

The parole office was housed twelve floors up in the Dade County courthouse on Flagler. My appointment with Shapiro was for ten and I arrived fifteen minutes early. Unused to the apartment's quiet and growing more concerned over what had become of Floyd, I found sleep elusive and had risen at first light. Before leaving the apartment, I forked a can of chopped ham into a bowl for Jasper, but the cat was still acting like a Diva and had ignored it.

"Take a seat, Stricker. I'll be with you in just a second," Shapiro said, without looking up from the file he was writing in.

I had to lean to one side to see him behind the mountains of paperwork he had piled up on his desk. Every square inch of space was taken up with stacks of manila folders. Tacked to the walls were several discolored maps of the Metro Miami area, a couple of cheap prints, and a cluster of yellowing parole department memos. The one conspicuous exception was the wall behind his desk. It was blank apart from a photograph of much younger Shapiro in State Police uniform. No souvenir certificates, no insignia mementoes, just that one picture.

I sat down and waited. From the window, I could see Biscayne and watched a white cruise liner sail south. Probably destined for the Bahamas.

I turned my attention back to the parole officer. Dave Shapiro was dressed much the same as the day we had met in prison; a pair of cotton jeans and a tennis shirt. A slim man, he had pale skin and washed-out brown hair. The sunlight made his ears appear translucent and highlighted the thick tuff of hair growing out of them. His lips were thin. Probably five or six years younger than the fifty he appeared. There were no gold on his finger, and he had his nails eaten down to the quick. As far as I could see there were no personal photographs on his desk. His eyes lacked humor.

Shapiro cleared his throat and directed those cold eyes towards me. His intense scrutiny made me uncomfortable and set my teeth on edge.

"I've reviewed your notes," he said, dropping his gaze. "Single. Raised in Hallandale. Top quartile in high school. Your boxing scholarship to college was withdrawn after you were busted by the campus cops for dealing marijuana to fellow art students. Kicked off the Olympic boxing squad for the same reason. Joined the Metro Dade Fire Department and made lieutenant. Served with distinction until your arrest for arson. Your fiancée 'Dear Johns' you while you're in the penitentiary, to marry another guy."

"You've done your homework."

Shapiro looked up. "You seem to have made a habit of failing to fulfill others' expectations of you."

"You could say that."

"I just did," he said, his voice sounding as though it could have cut through steel. "Your time in Lake Butler was relatively trouble-free and you have completed three years of a six-year sentence. State time − that's unusual for a first offence?"

"The judge thought firefighters should put out fires, not start them."

"I hear there's more to it."

I said nothing.

"I've had a visit from a Secret Service agent."

Morrell again, I thought bitterly. There's a man who doesn't know when to throw in the towel.

"Agent Morrell claims there was a cache of counterfeit currency in the house you burnt. He says he can't prove it, but that he doesn't have to."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"In his book, you belong inside and he's determined to see you complete your sentence at Butler. He's seeking my cooperation."

"How do you feel about that?" I asked. Morrell had written to the parole board opposing my release, but his views had been ignored. Obviously the agent hadn't been content to leave it at that. Morrell must have rubbed Shapiro up the wrong way, if he was letting me in on the agent's intentions. The parole board had warned me that life on the outside would be no picnic.

"I'll be up front with you," Shapiro said. "If you fuck with me, I'll have you on the Lake Butler bus so fast it will make you ears bleed. On the other hand, if you keep out of trouble I have no heartfelt desire to return you to the penitentiary." Shapiro's voice took on a sharp edge. "I most certainly shall not conspire with the Secret Service, or anyone else for that matter, to facilitate it. And I resent their attempt to implicate me in their machinations."

The extent to which Morrell had misread Shapiro became clear when I caught a brief flash of white hot anger behind the parole officer's eyes. If Morrell had it in for me, how much of a difference would it mean to have Shapiro on my side? I didn't plan to put him to the test.

"What gate money do you have?" he asked.

"Three hundred and twelve dollars." All there was to show for three years' toil in the prison's kitchens at fifty cents an hour, but that was more than most inmates managed to accumulate. I didn't smoke or use drugs.

"That should last you to your first wage packet. Six dollars an hour, paid weekly, less tax and deductions."

It would take a while to make Forbes' Fortune 500 at that rate.

Shapiro handed me a sealed envelope with the filling station's address written on the front. I knew the place. It was where the Florida Turnpike met the 1-95 and the Palmetto Expressway.

"Hand that to the manager when you arrive. He's expecting to see you sometime this morning."

"What's his name?"

"Drew Ryder. He works closely with this office and has taken on several paroled prisoners. A vacancy became available three weeks ago."

"How come?"

Shapiro shrugged. "Your predecessor is in Metro Dade jail charged with handling stolen property. Not an unusual occurrence, he just took less time than most. Where are you living? I telephoned the half-way house earlier and they said you hadn't checked in."

"I'm staying in a friend's apartment."

"What's the address and phone number?"

I told him. Shapiro wrote it down. "And your friend's name and occupation?"

"Floyd Benedict. Boxing coach."

Shapiro didn't look up as he asked his next inevitable question. "Has Benedict ever been convicted of a criminal offence?"

"Yes." It would be pointless to lie. "He did a two-year and then a four-year stretch in Michigan for auto theft. He's been straight for fifteen years."

"I see," Shapiro said, setting down his pen to give me his full concentration. "You realize that rooming with this man is a contravention of your parole conditions. I could violate you right now and have you fitted with an electronic ankle tag."

"It's his apartment, but he's not there at the moment. I have the place to myself."

Shapiro didn't appear too convinced, but he let it ride.

"Report to me every Friday and Monday at nine a.m. Ryder knows to excuse you from work at those times. I will be contacting him in a couple of days to see how you're settling in. Any questions?"

"Nope."

Shapiro got to his feet and hitched his jeans up. For a moment I thought he was going to shake my hand.

"Try to stay out of trouble longer than your predecessor."

Drew Ryder was a big man in his late forties. Only his large frame prevented him from appearing truly obese. He wore his hair long and sported a greasy beard which did little to disguise the four or five chins hanging slackly under his jaw. The belt around his middle had been fastened into an extra hole pierced in the final inch of leather. His forearms protruded like two inner tubes from his short-sleeved shirt. He had all the appearance of a gone-to-seed gorilla.

He took the letter from me in his office at the rear of the Exxon station. "What were you in for?"

"Arson."

"Insurance fraud?" Ryder's voice betrayed no sign of being judgmental as he ripped open the envelope.

"No. For the hell of it."

"I hope it was worth three years." Ryder scanned the contents.

"It wasn't."

"Try anything like that here and you'll not live long enough to be indicted. You clear on that?"

"Yeah." I had seen his type before. Ryder had probably been a bully in the school yard and, thanks to his size, had found the trait easy to maintain as he got older. Now he was nothing but a bag of guts, but he could still tyrannize by picking on those with too much to lose to risk fighting back.

Ryder proved my hypothesis correct by saying, "If you want to keep the job, it will cost you fifty a week. Basic's forty hours at six bucks per. You want more hours, you pay me an extra twenty-five. You clear?"

I nodded. I guessed my predecessor had preferred a little fencing on the side to lining Ryder's pockets. I wondered if Shapiro was in on the scam. Probably not.

Ryder pulled open a drawer and found a new set of overalls for me, then filled out a clock card.

"You can start now on day shift. That's seven to seven. Go find Tom Bell, he's probably loafing around the carwash, and have him to tell you what to do. There isn't anything here that requires much in the way of brains. You'll pump gas, clean windshields, check oil and tire pressures, just like any new boy until Dave tells you different. Okay?"

"It's clear."

One of the night shift Exxon employees failed to show up and Ryder had me stay on for a few hours, so it was gone midnight by the time I arrived back at Floyd's apartment. A couple of times during the day I had tried phoning, but there had been no reply.

I pulled the key out of the lock, nudged the door shut and flicked on the lights.

The young woman had been crouching behind the sofa and was on me before I had time to react. All I saw were the two shiny prongs of the stun-gun as it was jammed against my abdomen. I heard the crackle of the electric pulse as the voltage scrambled my nervous system, dropping me to the floor. It wasn't the first time I had been at the wrong end of a stun-gun, the Butler guards were issued with them whenever the yard atmosphere got ugly, and they weren't too discriminating about who got zapped. A jolt from a 4,000 volt Stinger would paralyze any man, regardless of size. The heart keeps on pumping and the brain is fully alert, but for two or three minutes the victim has the strength of a new born baby.

I watched helplessly as the black girl tied my legs together with duct tape, then rolled me over on my stomach and lashed my wrists behind my back. She worked quickly, obviously aware of the length of time I would be defenseless. She turned me over again and slapped a strip of tape across my mouth before propping me up with my back against the sofa. Satisfied that I was secure, she picked up the Stinger and rose to pull the blinds shut. She sat down and crossed her legs to wait for the effects to wear off.

I would have put her at no more than twenty-one. Her dark brown hair was swept back from her forehead and tied in a ponytail. Her eyes were green and she was wearing black cycle shorts and polo. You didn't need to be a genealogist to realize that, with legs that long, the girl had to Floyd's daughter. We had never met, but Floyd had often talked of Robin.

"You okay?" she asked, when I started to struggle against my bindings.

I nodded, recognizing where I had heard her voice before. It had been her on the phone the night before.

"I'm going to ask some questions and I want straight answers. Nod your head if you understand."

I nodded.

"In a moment I'm going to remove the tape from your mouth. If you shout out, I'll hit you with the Stinger again. In case you're not aware of it, repeated high-voltage shocks over a short period of time can cause permanent nerve damage. The threshold tolerance is different from person to person. You might handle a dozen hits without injury, or you could be one of those who will experience irreparable damage after only two or three. If I was you, I wouldn't risk finding out."

More nodding. She reached over and peeled off the tape.

"How did you get in?" I whispered.

"I told you, I'm asking the questions. What have you done with Floyd Benedict?"

"Not a damn thing. He disappeared yesterday. I've been expecting him to show up anytime."

"He left to pick you up at Lake Butler, but you arrived back here without him. What have you done with him?"

"You know who I am?"

"Yeah. You're Steve Stricker. You were doing a stretch for arson."

Play dumb. Not much of an option, but it was the only one I had at the moment. "Who are you?"

"Never mind about that. Tell me what you've done with Floyd?"

"What the hell are you on about? Why would I want to do anything to Floyd? He's my friend. We stopped for a beer and I went to the John. When I came out, Floyd was gone. I waited around for him, but he didn't return."

"Then how come you're riding about in his car?"

"He'd asked me to drive. I still had the keys on me when he disappeared."

"What stopped you from going to the police and reporting him missing?"

"And say what? That a grown man left a bar without telling anyone his business. Anyway, they wouldn't listen to a con fresh out of Butler."

Her face clouded with doubt for a second. "I guess not."

"Why do you think something might have happened to him?"

"I told you not to ask questions. Just tell me where he is."

"To hell with you. I've already told you the truth. Can I help it if you're too damned dumb to recognize it?"

She pushed the Stinger up to my face. Its coldness touched my cheek. She scraped the bristle with the metal prongs. Her thumb was over the button.

"You think I won't do it?"

She mustn't have appreciated the 'Fuck you' look in my eyes because I was treated to another jolt from the Stinger as penalty.

"That's two," she said, yanking my head up by the hair. "Want to try for a third?"

I was incapable of answering. She let go my hair.

"I swear I don't know where he is" were my first words, spoken as soon as the stunning had worn off.

"You were the last person to see him."

"You can't believe I would be stupid enough to come back here if I had harmed him."

"You don't need brains to qualify for Lake Butler."

"Is Floyd in some sort of trouble? We didn't have much time to talk."

The girl pressed the Stinger into my crotch. "How much is Angelo paying you?"

"What are you on about? I don't know any Angelo." I braced myself for another jolt. This one would really hurt.

"Stop jerking me around. It would have been easy for Angelo to get a message to you."

"Robin, was someone leaning on Floyd? It's time to stop playing games. Floyd used to talk a lot about you. I thought you were living with your mother in Saint Louis.

Robin was about to answer when there was a rap on the door. She slapped the tape back over my mouth and stood up. There was another knock, more insistent this time. I screwed my head around. There was no security peep-hole in the door.

Another rap.

Robin crossed to the door. She held the Stinger behind her back as she swung it open.

Floyd was standing there, gently swaying back and forth, his face swollen and battered. One eye had closed and the front of his shirt was drenched in blood. He looked as though he had gone the distance with Mike Tyson. His mouth dropped open like the maw on a largemouth bass.

"What the hell are you doin' here, girl?" he asked.

"Looking for you." She pulled him in and shut the door. Floyd leant on her as he crossed to the sofa. He was limping a lot more than usual and I could see that, as well as blood, the front of his shirt was criss-crossed with black streaks. Someone had been practicing their soccer skills on him.

Robin brought a wet cloth from the kitchen and started to wash the blood from her father's face. He held her wrist.

"Leave it. What you been doin' to Steve?"

"He turned up here by himself. I thought he was with them."

I struggled to my knees and, bracing myself against the back of the sofa, tried to stand up. I wobbled precariously for a second, and then crashed to the floor. The tape over my mouth didn't stop me grunting in pain.

Floyd's one good eye watched my antics. He smiled, revealing a freshly chipped tooth.

"Cut him loose. He'd nothin' t'do with it."

Robin looked dubious, but returned to the kitchen to fetch a knife. She sliced through the tape around my wrists and ankles. I stood up and pulled the tape from my mouth.

"Who worked you over?" I said, moving around the sofa to take a better look at Floyd.

"A couple of goons; twin guineas called Napoli. They came into the bar and sat down either side of me. One of them stuck a knife in my ribs and told me t'choose between walkin' out quietly with them or leavin' in a morgue van. They didn't much care which."

"Was one of them wearing two-tone loafers?"

"Both of them." Floyd used a finger to rock an eye tooth that had been loosened. He winced. "Those two sorry-assed mothers' wear the same clothes."

"I take it that their showing up wasn't entirely unexpected," I said, wondering how the drinkers in the bar could have failed to spot the Napoli double act.

"Sit down so I can talk to you; my neck hurts too bad t'keep starin' up at you. I was intendin' t'tell you all 'bout it, but they made their move before I had a chance. This is my daughter, Rob---"

"We've met," Robin said, picking the Stinger up from the armrest of the sofa. She gave me the same cold stare I've received from fighters before a bout.

"I got a hell of a shock when I walked in and found her here," I said.